Uh-Oh-Newbie Just Had An Information Overload Cry

I cottoned on pretty early that my reaction to certain foods was having a profound effect on my mood and overall wellbeing. So, over years of experimenting with different diets, I feel like I'm better at identifying what to avoid, but I can honestly say that I feel no closer to knowing what to include. I'm at the point where I'm scared to eat, a classic case of paralysis in the analysis. I recently did a Whole30 and although I was super proud of myself for sticking to it I have to admit that I was still plagued by bouts of desperately low mood and brain fog. So, I thought I'd go further and learned that FODMAPs can be particularly problematic for people and as I'd already been garlic and onion free for years due to debilitating migraines, I thought I would cut out all high FODMAP food. Now I'm reading Dave's book and I see high FODMAP veggies on top of the list, and I see all these recommended food that conflicts with The Blood Type Diet, and I see that olive oil is on the suspect list, and I suspect that I get signs of inflammation when I eat ghee (is that possible?)....and my head started to swirl and I actually started to cry....

I'm willing to dive into this wholeheartedly and I will so WATCH THIS SPACE but permit me a little overwhelmed, frustrated cry...Thanks

Comments

Hey there. Yes, I've heard someone else here in the forum talk about their inflammation after ghee as well. Check the search tool, it may be interesting for you to read that thread? Olive Oil oxidizes with heat and oxygen... we get a lot of low-quality (old, oxidized, rancid) olive oil on our shelves here in the states, and when you heat it up, it's oxidized even more. Once I heard Dave explain why he dismisses the Blood Type diet, but I can't remember what he said... there are a few diets out there he seems to have respect for, but that is not one of them.

I can see how you're maxing-out on all the conflicting approaches, and you're disappointed that the Whole30 thing did not do the trick. You should congratulate yourself for putting in the effort you have, though! I hope you keep on trying until you find something that does work for you.

Remember that normal beliefs about nutrition are super-misguided. So, there is a lot that the general population needs to catch up on, and there is a lot still left to learn. The people trying to figure it all out are not always on the same page. Unfortunately, to be able to determine for once and for all the truth behind these nutritional questions require tons of long-term, expensive studies, and the medical/scientific establishment seems to prefer putting money towards developing pharmaceuticals instead. So, we're left with lots of conflicting systems, and, we each have to experiment on ourselves to see what works best.

FYI Bulletproof is pretty awesome, I've been doing it 2 years. I still have a couple items to improve (my thyroid and maximizing my supplements), but overall I am so much healthier. I wish I had started when I was much younger! I hope you try it, and I definitely recommend the podcast if you have not tried it yet. It's an easy way to start learning more.

Yep, information overload happened to me, too. I know the feeling about feeling nervous about eating something outside of what you know is okay. It helped me a lot when I did the elimination of JJ Virgin along with eating the green zone only of Dave's list and eating strictly BP inside of the elimination protocols. It was really much more simple than it sounds. My 84 yr old mother started it with me. I found out a few foods I react to that I had no idea about.

I, too, am a headache sufferer. I have not found a solution to that yet other than ice packs. I cannot take any of the meds (prescribed or OTC) due to allergies. For me, I believe my are related to weather and the barometric pressure. Headaches are kinda elusive to figure out. However, I have my diet finally nailed down, so now working environmental.

Here's the JJ interview with Dave about her elimination diet. Fascinating listen and easy to incorporate.

What drew me to the Bulletproof approach was viewing my diet as an n=1 experiment, and this also helps me to not freak out with information overload. Once I started tracking what I ate and how it makes me feel, new information just became an interesting new variable to test. Instead of "oh crap, I just found out I should/shouldn't be eating X" it's "Hmm, I'll try that next week and see what happens." Sometimes it's disheartening to go in a wrong direction, but I know that with this test/observe/adjust mentality I'll get where I need to go eventually. Also, the actual act of tracking, the writing down what I ate, seems to help with the info overload freakouts. Even if I eat something totally crappy, the act of tracking that and logging results is a positive thing and provides valuable information.

Restricting FODMAPs generally helps people with gut issues, with the theory being undesirable bacteria can feed on FODMAPs. The BP diet assumes a fairly healthy gut, but if you don't have a healthy gut, especially if you have small intestinal bacteria overgrowth, some adjustments should be made to the diet to avoid FODMAPs. BTW, Dave has talked about garlic changing brain activity, he says he has evidence that it's harder to get into a meditation state if you've eaten garlic in the last few days. Garlic could hypothetically cause migraines by being a FODMAP that feeds unwanted bacteria that then affect neurotransmitter levels... or it could be just doing it's garlicky thing that Dave talks about. If other FODMAPs aren't a problem for you, I wouldn't try to stick to a low FODMAP diet which is pretty restrictive. Or, like I talked about before, plan to test it for a limited time and see what's up. But if you don't get demonstrable benefits, I don't think it's a good idea to stay restricted.

Exactly! If you listened to every diet "expert" at the same time you couldn't eat anything, so the key is to use their advice as a stepping stone to figure out what works for you. The BP diet roadmap infographic and its green-to-red setup is just a set of hints designed to make "cracking your code" easier by sort of showing you the odds. Odds are good that green foods work for you and red foods are bad for you, but in between lies a lot of individual variation. And, a very small percentage of people defy the odds, either with issues with BP-green foods or a strange tolerance for eating garbage. While you're on the journey to figuring out your own optimal diet, remember that you're already hugely ahead of the curve: most people don't pay attention to this stuff at all. Just eating real food and minimizing processed junk is a huge step in the right direction.

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